So to finish up my time in Cannes, I walked back to the Carlton after a bit of beach time the following day. The drink menu featured 20-30 euro drinks. I opted to walk through the hotel, smile, and have dinner and a glass of wine for 1/3rd the price of a single cocktail at the Carlton.
(Yes both sides have about 8 inches exposed...ugh)
(Road Warrior Breakfast of Champions-Ask for a coffee get a give you chest hair Expresso)
The next morning I decided to walk from my hostel to the different sites. Eight kilometers later...I made it. It was good to walk around after sitting most of the day before on trains. I made it to Travellers Bar just in time for a free walking tour. Travellers Bar is a great place near Las Ramblas with student friendly lunch prices and drinks. They also have numerous tours from the place. Our tour guide was named Jim the Aussie. Evidently there was another Jim already working there. He looked like a crazy party guy. He paid special attention to each of the 15 or so of us on the tour. For instance, he asked a German couple where they were from and they said Hamburg, he then said tasty and commented that if they had said Hanover that is what he was experiencing at the present moment. When he found out I was from Texas he immediately yelled as loud as he could "The Stars at Night are Big and Bright..." Yes, I unconciously clapped. He took us on a 3 hour walk around the different sights and gave incredible information at every spot. I feel like I took a Spanish history entire semester course in 3 hours. Some interesting facts about Barcelona: Before the 1992 olympics, Barcelona tried to kick out all of the illegal immigrants. A massive hunger strike started in response with citizens and illegal immigrants participating. The strike caused the government to give up and put in place a new immigration policy: Anyone, yes, anyone who can prove they lived in the country for 5 years can get full citizenship. Jim was happy to announce he was on year 3. We learned about Franco's rule and saw some of the destruction he caused. We traced our fingers in the pock (spelling on a train without spell check is terrible) marked church where a bomb was dropped on a school for Spanish soldier's children. The sight was later used as the backdrop for firing lines. Terrifying stuff.
We would go from that to "Oh and look here. The highest urine stain ever recorded!"
We walked through George Orwell Square and learned he fought in the Spanish Civil War, but got shot right off the bat. He survived the wound, but died of TB years later. The Spanish named a square after him to thank him. Before the 1992 olympics, Spain commissioned an artist to create a work for the middle of the square. No one saw the design until the unveiling. Here is what it looks like.
No one knew what it was until they figured out it is what TB looks like under a microscope...pretty warped stuff. Another fun fact: the sand on the beaches in Barcelona is from the Sahara and that is why it is so dusty. The palm trees in the city are from Hawaii. Barcelona actually pays a yearly rental fee.
Jim would go back to years and events to quiz us and make sure the info sunk in. We were rewarded with high fives. I got two high fives for identifying crumbling roman ruins as an aqueduct. The tour was great and we ended in a bar with .50 Euro Estrella Beers. Estrella is basically the most popular/ most widely available beer at the cheapest price. It's not bad. I met two friends on the tour, one from Australia traveling around for 9 months and the other was from California. She finished school and decided to move to Barcelona for some time to refresh. Both are great people. After walking around some more after the tour we decided to meet back up to see the dancing fountains. We met back up, but found out at that point the fountain show wasn't running that night. Instead we opted for Sangrias. Australians have massive bus tours around Europe where you pay for a certain amount of time and every other day the bus can pick you up and take you to the next city. There is a huge route around Europe. So we got Sangrias and there was Brent with 5 Australian girls and an American girl. It was terrible.
We had a great time hanging out and meeting people. One of the girls got us a bit lost and I believe it was in the square Pablo Picasso lost his virginity Jim told us not to be after dark... I tried to point us towards a better part of town, but one of the girls had to use the restroom and told me to stay where I was so she could find me, I protested, but she rushed off. I stood there, both hands in my pockets, while many interesting locals tried to shake my hand and use every trick in the book to pick my pocket. The Artful Dodger set up a University in Barcelona. One of the girls recognized one of her friends from earlier that day and he came to shake my hand and all the creeper dissapeared. I was like wow, how did you do that? I thought they were going to jump me. He said, this is what happens when you sell the best weed in Barcelona...You can imagine my face. I was relieved to meet him, but went home soon thereafter. A funny story, I'm very glad to still be alive to tell.
That interesting incident aside, Barcelona is a vibrant, very fun city with a great deal of beauty. I believe I got to sleep at around 4:30 am that night in Barcelona and keep in mind I went home early.
The next morning I caught the Ave train to Madrid. The train was very nice and had a digital display of the current speed. The train averaged about 300 km/hour. It was great. A short 2.5 hours from Barcelona to Madrid. Check out the incredible train station in Madrid:I checked into my hostel which smelled of pine sol. There was no doubt the place was sparkling clean. I signed up for the Tapas Tour that night and walked around Madrid. The city is beautiful and very clean. The Tapas Tour that evening was great. We went to three different authentic Spanish restaurants/bars and sampled beer, sangria, cider and with them got free tapas. It was interesting to see a guy peel meat off a pig's leg. He held onto the hoof and just scraped the meat off and put it on my cheese and bread...interesting stuff.
We also poured the cider in an interesting way where the cider splatters into the glass from high above. They said it makes it taste better, but I still prefer Strongbow. I met great people from England, US, Brazil, Argentina, and of course Australia.
The next day I got up and met up with my good friends Chris and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was one of the best bosses I've had. They are so much fun. We walked all over Madrid sampling sangria and tasty tapas. We ended the night on the roof of a nice hotel near my hostel overlooking the city. The place was a lot like Ghostbar in Dallas on top of the W Hotel. It was a great day!
The next day I met up with them for lunch with a friend of theirs from Spain named Tony. He was absolutely great. He took us to a local restaurant and we had dish after dish of incredible tasting food. I just met him, but he is one of those people that is so nice right off you are sure you must be old friends. Can't thank Chris and Elizabeth enough for asking me to join them. After lunch we walked around more and had a very nice cafe con leche in a beautiful open air cafe. They were kind enough to show me around and walk me back to my hostel before my overnight train. Fantastic people!
A quick interesting thought on Spain. Chris told me about the mindset behind a Spanish company which would invest in projects for 99 years or so. It is interesting how a company would invest in something for that amount of time even though they themselves will not be present to understand and appreciate the benefits of the investment. As I type this across from Sagrada Familia by Gaudi, it is refreshing and incredible to think of investing in something beyond your own benefit. You don't hear about that enough in the US.I digress, later that night I took the overnight train from Madrid to Lisbon, Portugal. Due to time restrictions on internet, I will have to leave it there. Next post will be about Lisbon and going through two nights of overnight trains...I'm halfway through that stretch at the present moment. Once again please forgive spelling and grammatical errors. No time to re-read. Ugh! Also the spacing just went bonkers on me. Sorry about that.
Hope everyone is well back home and thanks for reading!
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